The popular Swallow Hollow trail at Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.
Wildlife, plants, peacefulness, and a staff that teaches about nature: All this and more are what visitors tell us they love about Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.
But the refuge and others nationwide are in danger from cuts in federal spending and expected policy changes.
“Public lands are under threat right now,” Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, said Tuesday during a Zoom call with Friends of refuge groups from around the country.
The refuge system had already been facing enormous fiscal pressure, having lost 31% of its staffing since 2010. Sorenson-Groves’ organization says 320 refuge system employees nationwide, a number of them biologists who play an important, knowledgeable role in refuge management, were fired on Feb. 14. According to the group’s tally, the refuge system is now down to 2,230 full-time equivalents to manage 90 million land acres and 760 million marine acres.
By contrast, the U.S. Forest Service employs 30,000 FTEs to manage 193 million acres. (It should be noted that all public land management agencies were understaffed before the current round of cuts began. The comparison is not intended to throw the Forest Service under the bus, but to show how far the refuge system has already been cut.)
Community treasure
An estimated 80,000 people visited Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge’s nearly 11,000 acres last year. The refuge is managed by just a handful of people and cannot afford to lose any more staff.
“You can hike, commune with nature, bird watch, fish, hunt and trap on the Iroquois refuge. And most of those can be done free of charge,” said Richard Moss, president of Friends of Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, a 501(3)c nonprofit corporation that supports the refuge. “I am calling on everyone who loves and uses the refuge to help protect this beautiful resource. The refuge is a public benefit that everyone can use, regardless of political affiliation.”
Moreover, he said, many of the thousands of people who visit the refuge help the local economy. Maybe they stop by the nearby Alabama Hotel, the Log Cabin at Indian Falls, head up to Medina to stop in at the Coffee Pot Cafe, or patronize other local businesses.
Sorenson-Groves laid out a bleak picture of what could lay in store for the refuge system, including more staffers leaving because they become over-worked and demoralized.
She cited the Endangered Species Act and lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management as likely early targets of the administration. But she said refuges also could be opened up to more oil and gas drilling, and she could not rule out that some public lands, including refuges, could be sold or marine national monuments repealed.
Government shutdown likely
She also said that the tea leaves she’s reading indicate there will be a government shutdown starting March 14. If that should happen, based on previous shutdowns, you would still be able to walk the trails at Iroquois refuge, but the Visitor Center would be closed and most on-site Iroquois Observation programs would be halted for the duration, Moss said.
Sorenson-Groves also said there have been proposals floated that would turn some refuges over to corporations to run, although there are no definite plans for that yet.
Contact Congress
Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge is wholly within New York’s 24th Congressional District, which is represented in Congress by Republican Claudia Tenney.
Moss asks that everyone who values the Iroquois refuge call or write Tenney and New York’s U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and ask them to protect the Iroquois refuge and its dedicated, hard-working staff.
“Tell them why you value the refuge and what it would mean to you and the community if it were no longer here so they understand what it means to this community,” he said.
Contact information for the congressional delegation:
Rep. Claudia Tenney
2230 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 225-3665
Website: tenney.house.gov
Sen. Chuck Schumer
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-6542
www.schumer.senate.gov
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
478 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-4451
www.gillibrand.senate.gov
